


Let Us Remember Our Gardens

by Filigranka



Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: Dark, Drama, Enemies With Benefits, F/M, Genocide, Hux is Not Nice, I've always wanted to use it. and it's similar class-wise, Lady Organa's Lover, Leia Is Not Nice, Manipulation, Politics, Power Imbalance, The Galaxy Is Not Nice, Unhealthy Relationships, arranged political alliance, everything is hollow and nothing hurts, morally dubious use of the genocide, oh all sorts of it, only the victims are never wrong (but they lack charisma points), the official tags are euphemisms I feel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-09-28
Updated: 2018-09-28
Packaged: 2019-07-18 03:37:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,845
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16109975
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Filigranka/pseuds/Filigranka
Summary: She doesn’t want wilful gentleness from him; it makes her sick with guilt and hope—and oh, how he loves crushing her hope.(Or: Hux likes cruelty in his care, Leia likes overdramatic gestures in her hope, the galaxy is fed up with both of them.)





	Let Us Remember Our Gardens

**Author's Note:**

> Callmelyss was my wonderful beta and helped me with MIA articles and tangled tenses - thank you very much! <3

 

 

This time, the smell of green hits him first. Overwhelming, rich, wet—so sweet—

Flowers. Hux is immediately pushed into them, the lianas, the cascades of huge, delicate petals, tickling his neck and cheeks, before they get squashed by his body. For a second, he’s irritated, thinking about the stains on his uniform.

Then he remembers nothing here is real. The smells, the feeling of soft, moist texture behind his back, the songs of the hundred different kinds of birds—nothing. The only real sensations are Leia’s lips on his, her fingers in his hair, pushing his face lower, her hips canting slowly.

Hux humours her, as always. Kisses back. Slide a hand down her back and below the Senate robes—funny, how she still wishes she could wear those. He writes a mental note to order a set or two for her birthday, for  memory’s sake, even as he circles her clitoris with his thumb, licks her behind the left ear, breathes on the back of her neck, just below the hairline.

Leia’s earring feels cold and sharp against his jaw. It still startles Hux a little, how detailed and real these projections are. He tries pinpoint their exact location, roaming through his  memories of the files and albums she forced him to read. The flowers, the humid, wet air, the muffled sounds of the talks nearby—ah, the hanging gardens, probably.

The question slips from his tongue almost unconsciously, makes him taste Leia’s sweat, salty, but with the hint of the metallic bitterness from her  perfume.

‘Hanging gardens, yes,’ she whispers and he can’t hide his little, stupid smile at  being correct. ‘You’re terrible,’ she adds, but when he lifts her, Leia closes her legs around his waist without hesitation. ‘Why can’t you just say—act—‘

‘Because I’m not; you’re a mind-reader and we’re in the middle of your mental projection. No use for lies.’

‘You wouldn’t—either way. You wouldn’t bother to—wouldn’t care.’

She’s partly right. He wouldn’t. He does care, though, cares enough to make his thrusts hard and arrhythmical, his grip strong enough to leave bruises. If she wanted  long, tender foreplay and careful touches, she wouldn’t bring them here, but to Starkiller Base, let Hux see what he loved the most and wasn’t able to save, let him be a very good boy for her out of the fear of staying there too long, seeing it crumbling all over again.

Yet they’re in this warm, wet, artificial garden, choking on its sweet, rich smell—so this time Leia wants to punish herself. He’s happy to oblige.

He’s happy to oblige when she wants gentleness, too. There’s a certain kind of pride in the knowledge you please a woman, and there’s another, more specific one, in knowing you, the son of a kitchen worker, please a princess. Even if this particular princess has a well-known weakness for the lower class.

The tree bark is harsh like a sandpaper, he can feel it through his uniform. It must be scratching Leia’s knees bloody. Such a lovely detail.

He slows down a little, almost pulling out, just to see her squirm, hear her heavy sigh, feel it in the way her chest expands against his collarbones. He thinks of this bark behind him, of the way it takes her skin apart, layer after layer, the surface breaking and crumbling. He thinks _it, too, is_ _white_ and immediately grits his teeth. Thrusts again, harder. Could swear he feels silent laughter, hidden in her throat.

Hux doesn’t know if Leia manipulates his thoughts in her illusions. He still has almost no clue about how these projections work and sometimes feels tempted to ask.

Is Leia, with her eyelids closed tightly, just like now, still able to see him and their surroundings, or is the illusion too complete for this? How much of this is her choice, how much this famed Will of The Force? Does she really want to be here  or is it just a projection of her emotions, her guilt and hope, hope and guilt, always coming in pairs when she’s with him? Would it be possible for her to actually remember, consciously, all these details she’s creating, including the small board pinned to the tree, with its name in half a dozen languages, to the right of Hux’s head?

He will never voice these questions, of course, unless Leia asks about something of a similar importance first. And he doubts she will, just like Ren, contented in feeling the power, not daring to ask which side of their "relationship with the Force" is really in control. Ren, with his raw strength and his childish doubts, hiding himself beneath the Will of The Force, talking about the visions of unspeakable danger and finally disappearing far into the Unknown Regions to “protect the galaxy”. Hah. Like Hux would ever believe in such nonsense. To this day he’s sure that Ren just escaped everything, like the rebellious, ungrateful brat he was, and hid himself on some nice planet, leaving this mess of the galaxy to his  mother and Hux. As damn usual. Leave it to mother dear to take care of everything. Leave her a lover—an interesting opponent to play against, at least—as an apology note.

The thought makes Hux grit his teeth. Fucking Ren, still haunting his mind after all these years. He turns his head, reads this information board—thrusting hard, gripping Leia’s neck so strongly her bites starts to feel like a desperate attempts to catch air—and even then he reads, remembers the names for the future use. Tries to hear fragments of the discussions nearby, catches the names of the politics long-gone, bills nulled void by the time. He supposes he has twenty something years of taking all possible suppressants to thank for this... detachment and a clear mind.

It's not that he doesn't enjoy sex. He doesn’t especially desire it, but isn't really opposed to it, isn’t completely blinded by the surge of the hormones, but said surge is physiologically nice. Psychologically, he likes to see Leia... contented, like now, hot, sweating and trembling in his arms, her muscles tensed and taunt from her effort to stay still, not show him how much she wants it, her breathing so shallow and erratic, her bites and kisses meant to hide the moans.

This, Hux likes very, very much. He tells himself it’s because of the control only. He doesn’t believe in the “only” part and this is all Leia’s fault, so he buries his nose in her hair, takes a deep breath—it doesn’t smell like flowers, but the musky, sensual scent called, as she taught him, ambergris, the aquatic mammals’ vomit—and finds the tip of her ear with his tongue and licks it. Gently. Just as she likes.

Except she doesn’t want gentleness now. She doesn’t want wilful gentleness from him ever; it makes her sick with these guilt and hope—and oh, how he loves crushing her hope.

Leia must have heard his thoughts. Or perhaps she just knows Hux too well. Either way, the sky is suddenly reddening and the birds’ twitterings are becoming the panicked, hysterical cacophony as the creatures, trying to escape, hit the garden’s glass walls over and over again, perhaps discovering for a first time they wasted their lives in a cage.

‘So soon?’, he coos, ceasing all movements, just letting his breath fall upon her skin. ‘Should I feel offended, Your Highness? I had the impression you were enjoying—’

The pressure on his throat cuts him short. He smiles, thinks _loudly_ how much like her father and son she is. The birds are screaming. People, too. A baby is crying, probably because it’s afraid of all this useless noise, and this sound is terrible, high-pitched, cutting, making even Hux’s bones tremble. Physiology, he thinks, a dozenth time. Humans are programmed to feel alarmed by an infant's crying.

‘I could kill you,’ whispers Leia. ‘The peace be damned, I could kill you now, make you die here, _with them_.’

She has the power and she’s mad enough; he recognises the high of an ideology in her tone, more powerful than the pure spice. Hux still doubts she will actually do it, but there’s the possibility and it’s enough to make him afraid, despite his best efforts, despite the fact he also recognises the game.

She wants him frightened by the prospect of the imminent death just like the projected—recalled—citizens around them. She wants him to empathise. Feel remorse.

She still has hope. For him, of all the galaxy. It would be funny, if not for the watery, blurred curtain falling upon his vision. But he thrusts even harder, _wants_ harder than before. The physiological reaction to the lack of air.

He must look terrible now, eyes bloody, lips turning blue, fingers scraping at Leia’s back, because The Force doesn’t let him move his arms. He must look terrible, if Leia’s muscles clench around his cock so tightly, if her back arches spasmodically, if her nails bury in his uniform. She quickly hides her face in his chest again, relaxes her hands, but the glimpse—her shame, his choked triumph, the red light of the apocalypse around them—is enough for Hux to come, just as his vision is darkening and the impact wave turns them all to dust.

It’s doesn’t hurt. Damn.

And then the pressure on his throat is gone. The sweet smell is gone. So are the harsh bark behind his back and the soft leaves in his hair. Hux falls, wheezing, gasping for air, but this time there’s the soft mattress, not cold ground, beneath his knees.

Before his vision comes back, he hears the ruffle of clothing, feel the matters dipping next to him. Fingers, sticky with sweat, comb through his hair. Once. Twice. Three times. He stops counting, focus on breathing instead. Closes his eyes, hoping his sight will be back when he’ll open them.

‘We should do something about the bruises,’ Leia’s voice is calm, but Hux knows how deeply she hates herself now, and this is wonderful, the best part of the whole sex business. ‘It won’t look good with the public.’

Nice try, princess. But he has humoured her enough for one night.

‘The public,’ he croaks, carefully, his throat burning like hell, ‘doesn’t give a damn. The public fully expects us to torture each other every time we meet, thinks we deserve it and just hopes we won’t start a new war over this. They hate us, Your Highness. They would never force this deal upon us if they didn’t.’

‘They hate _the war.'_

‘And what we are to them if not the war incarnate?’ He moves closer to Leia, touches her thigh with his brow, makes a  show of searching for intimacy. Enjoys the way she immediately tenses, before lowering her hand to his back, stroking his spine through the clothes. Thinks of her guilt and self-loathing. ‘The ones raised to fight and unable to let go.’

He finally opens his eyes, looks up on the richly ornamented ceiling. The replica of the Alderaan royal palace. The whole wing is a carbon copy of Leia’s home-rooms. Right to the smallest detail.

It cost him so much to built it. Money. Effort. Influence. Hunting for old holograms, paintings, photos. Sending people to search through archives all around the galaxy. Finding the right kind of materials, wood, stone, textile, often almost-extinct. Paying for the craftsmen knowledgeable in the ancient techniques. Doing all of these quietly, because he wanted his gift to be a surprise.

Of course, probably even a distant resemblance would be more than enough to shake Leia. But he likes meticulousness in his cruelty and cruelty in his care. This way her reaction back then—her widened eyes, palm at her mouth, teeth biting into it to stop the scream, her hand slapping him across the face and then her slumping into his arms either way, because there was no one else to hold her as she sank to her knees, her silent sobs and tears falling that night when she thought he was asleep—this way all of these felt more deserved. Earned _fairly._

Sure enough, next time they went to bed, she projected his room on Arkanis, taking them right into the memory of his father arguing with—hurting—mother just behind the wall. Hux actually begged Leia, that one time, to not take the memory further, to stop at the shouting, before the things would start to be broken, before he would hear his mother’s desperate, pained sobs.

The princess didn’t listen, which was fair enough revenge, he supposed. They didn’t even fuck that time, Leia just held him with the Force, kept his palms open, so he wouldn’t hurt himself, petted and soothed him like he was a child—kissing his hair, his eyelids, the back of his hands, exactly like he had been doing through her first days in the Alderaanian decor—and she made him stay until the very end of the argument’s fallout, listening to his mother crying, knowing exactly where his father’s hits landed.

When they came back to the reality, he was trembling. He was trembling, called Leia “mother” out of the sheer confusion and for a moment regretted making the Alderaanian wing. But she felt so guilty for the days after—to this day she pauses and grimaces a little when he alludes to it—and he got to hear his mother, if only crying in the projection, so ultimately Hux decided the move was worth it.

She still meets with him, after all. She may refuse to come to the personal part of his... he doesn’t want to call it a palace, but it’s hardly just a house. She may go back to meetings accompanied by dozens of advisors and bodyguards, like at the beginning of this political treaty forced on them by the war-exhausted galaxy—Core to the The Resistance, Rims to the First Order, shared bicameral Senate, them both with official titles of Protectors, the command over two barely-jointed armies and a large part of the executive power, the unspoken “is that enough for you, mad fanatical bastards, to finally let us live and do our business in peace” in the air. She may stop all of this.

Yet she chooses to come here, to this mirage of her lost home, time and time again, to talk in private, hurt him and sleep with him; she wants to play the game, and Hux— _likes cruelty in his care_ —is glad.

‘No speeches, hmm? What are you thinking about?’ Leia’s leaning back on the golden-wood bed frame, still stroking his hair, neck and back.

Hux supposes she is slowly healing his bruises, but doesn’t bother reproaching her. Kisses her inner thigh instead.

‘How to give you what you don’t know... refuse to know... you need. Want,’ words come out a little slurred; he’s sleepy.

She immediately tenses. Sighs and gets up.

‘If this is what I think it is, I disagree. Again. Officially. In the name of the Core. Both Alderaan’s and the Hosnian system’s cemeteries belong to the Core. You have no right to—‘

‘Just like I said. You refuse to acknowledge—‘

‘I don’t need the Hosnian system to be harvested like some damn trash can. It’s a sacred monument of the billions’ martyrdom! And you killed them. How can you even dare...?’

‘You harvested the Death Star herself. It was sacred for many, too.’ His tone is bored, almost lazy; they have screamed at each other over this hundred times already. ‘I can assure that your people would feel better living on a planet, not watching the ruins of their home from the windows of the cosmic station built from the bones of their enemies. Ask your Core psychologists. Or just look what such a life did _to me_. Do you want your people to destroy Arkanis one day?’

He thinks she may hurt him, the wave of her burning rage almost palatable in the air. But she just breathes deeply, turns on her heel and goes to the bathroom.

‘I don’t,’ she announces at the door, meters away; royal bedrooms really are stupidly, nonsensically huge. No wonder so many across the Rims cheered when Hux blew the Hosnian system up. ‘I care about Arkanis just as much as I care about any other planet in this galaxy. But you don’t, do you? If it was blown into pieces, the only thing you would care about would be your reputation.’

Hux shrugs. He left Arkanis when he was four. What is Leia expecting, some deep sentiment?

‘Arkanis is the main water source for the desert planets in the system. First, I’d care about providing water to _Tatooine_.’

She slams the door. And that is exactly why Hux needs to think _how_ to give her Alderaan back—just the planet, of course, and even he understands it’s very little compared to the people—even though he and his technologists have the detailed concepts and projects already. They all include using the remnants of the Hosnian system, the degenerate matter created by the pocket nova.

It would be such a great engineering challenge. A miracle, almost. Artificial planets, the old beautiful dream. To have this chance slip through his fingers because of some aristocratic, Core superstition is—impossible to imagine without a shudder. It would be such a waste. Practically a crime.

But Leia’s adamantly against touching what’s left of the Hosnian system and Hux doubts the citizens and elites of the Rims would allow him to start a war over it. He would have to use the Senate, he muses as he takes his uniform off, both of the Houses, and have the landslide majority—Leia wouldn’t be able to veto, not without losing her face—and he has absolutely no idea how. The Rims would support this, probably, excited of the prospect of creating  new and better planets, making their own great Core. But the real, currently existing Core would probably sooner let the whole galaxy burn than agree to any plan of Hux’s. The Core worlds have this... irritating, blind solidarity of the millennia-old money.

And if the Rims supported him, Leia would fulfil her old threat and announce—remind—to the whole galaxy that the First Order was willing to shoot at the Ileenium system, Hux’s own fruitless veto rendered inconsequential by his bow a mere seconds later. _That_ might turn the Rims’ loyalty.

The door cracks open.

‘Why are you tempting me?’ Leia sounds very, very tired. ‘Even you must know how much it... How, for me, it’s...’ She trails off.

Hux’s eyes are closed but he can easily imagine the movement of her throat. He sees it often enough. ‘Why do you deny yourself? It’d bring no harm to anyone.’

‘It would be unjust. Dishonourable. Spitting on the victims’ memory.’

‘You had no objections while using the Death Star to—‘

‘Perhaps I was wrong. That’s why?’ She slides in besides him, naked and still cold from the shower, puts a hand on his chest, touches his nipples lightly. ‘You’re trying to punish me?’

‘I’d never dare, You Highness. The son of a kitchen woman punishing the royal blood? Such an injustice. Such a dishonour.’

‘I resigned—’

‘You decided another title is shinier. I’m aware.’ He sits up.

‘Don’t.’ Leia pushes him back. ‘Stay.’ She smells of soap, fresh and woody — fougère, he recalls, that’s what she said it's called, once more slapping him with all this erudite, luxurious knowledge —but there’s also the after-smell of that ambergris perfume in her hair. It tingles his tongue when he kisses her hairline. ‘I like you messy.’

‘ _I_ dislike myself messy.’ Or sleeping naked, but she prefers him without the layers of clothes, more like, Hux thinks, a tired man than a genocidal war criminal.

‘Please.’ It doesn’t sound like a plea, but a handout.

A son of a kitchen woman shouldn’t expect anything more from a princess—and sometimes Hux would tell Leia so. Usually on the nights when she puts them on the Starkiller base.

Tonight they have been on Hosnian Prime, he’s re-lived his triumph and hasn’t broken despite this poor kid’s shrill cries (a tragedy, but so are the everyday deaths of slaves and underpaid workers, and victims of famines in the Rims—at least the losses on Hosnian Prime had a purpose, were necessary to bring a better future, at least on Hosnian Prime everybody had had a good life before, at least Hosnian Prime was a privileged, oppressive leech, spoiled, rotten and guilty). Another triumph for him. Hux can afford to be generous.

He doesn’t say a word as he lies back and very consciously relaxes his muscles. He really dislikes staying messy after sex: the feel of drying sweat no longer slick, but sticky, the smell of his own body uncomfortably close to the stink of decay, the greasy heaviness of his hair. He breathes deeply through his nose, tries to expel these sensations. Focus on Leia’s presence, her hand moving along his chest, her legs entangled between his own, her lips nibbling at his ribs.

He will fall into deep, easy sleep like that, like he used to, with those wild kids of his around him, all of them crumpled in a small space, and sometimes hugging—soothing—getting closer to him. To get warmer. Out of the well-ingrained by the pack life lack of  modesty. And—and probably not to ease his sleep at all. It wasn’t like they cared. Absolutely not.

He isn’t sure if Leia noticed how it... calms him... herself or just took the memory from his head. He doesn’t care, not any more, not now, not when her guilt makes her gentle and her touch makes the darkness in his head softer, the fall into it more like a glide.

One day Hux will tell Leia he loves her and will watch _the general_ fall apart at that. Perhaps it will finally break her completely. Perhaps not; after all, he hasn’t been broken by these empathy-forcing sessions on Hosnian Prime. Perhaps he should wait until he find a way to circumvent her veto of using the system’s remnants to recreate Alderaan, then. Say it after the Senate’s voting or building the new-old planet’s founding.

He sees it even now, falling through the space of his own head, the things he could do, combining, _combusting_ The Force and the technology—the nebulas, the black holes, the birthplaces and cemeteries of stars, sculpted and chiselled under his fingertips. Theirs. This one power is unobtainable for him alone, but what was First Order built upon if not the belief in the community and cooperation? something larger than any individual, any rights and desires, and emotions of a one?

And yet... Sooner or later, one way or another, he _will_ tell her. And the Force won’t let Leia pretend it’s a lie.


End file.
